


still young

by trilobites



Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Apologies, Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Fights, First Meetings, Getting to Know Each Other, Growing Up, HQ Rarepair Week, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23890585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilobites/pseuds/trilobites
Summary: Komori Motoya enters his first year of high school. Sakusa Kiyoomi enters his life. All is not well.
Relationships: Komori Motoya/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724674
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	still young

**Author's Note:**

> For the Haikyuu Rare Pair Week 2020 Day 1 Prompt - 'Affinity.'

Motoya had seen Sakusa before the first year volleyball recruits had even gotten a chance to make their introductions for the new year. Sakusa was a little bit famous, after all.

In the Spring Tournament of their third year of middle school, news had spread like wildfire about a third year who had made a group of underclassmen kneel and beg for forgiveness for spreading rumors about _the_ Ushiwaka. Motoya knew for a fact that this wasn’t true. He’d witnessed the real sequence of events for himself: Sakusa had approached the first years from another school and torn into them for wasting their time on useless pursuits when they were still warming the bench.

“Does it make you feel good to talk about other people behind their backs? Did you think it’d be okay so long as no one said anything to you?” Sakusa demanded. His brows were drawn together in a deep frown, and this seemed to cow the first years, only one of whom stood tall against Sakusa.

“How about you? Does it feel good to bully people?” One of the other first years nudged him in the elbow and hissed: “That’s _Sakusa_ , man! Just say sorry!”

Sakusa had snorted rudely. “Really big of you. If you have time to waste like this, you clearly aren’t working hard enough on volleyball.” Then he’d walked away while the first years had seethed amongst themselves, vowing to defeat Sakusa’s school and show him up.

In short, no kneeling, nope. However, that hadn’t stopped the rumors from flying every which way, and Sakusa became infamous for his outburst. Motoya promptly forgot about him, though, because his own team was knocked out of the semi-final qualifier round, and then he wasn’t thinking about Sakusa Kiyoomi or Ushijima Wakatoshi or anyone else. There was only Komori Motoya, who had to go home instead of playing another match on the court. He’d stared out of the bus window the entire time, frustrated that his eyes remained dry in spite of the muffled sniffles from the rest of his team.

Motoya had never expected to see Sakusa again so soon—certainly not as a teammate standing elbow to elbow in a line with him and Itachiyama’s other first year recruits. For all that his tirade during the tournament had been so impassioned, Sakusa’s introduction was staid: “Sakusa Kiyoomi. I played wing spiker at Kaisei Academy. My goal is to play in the nationals.”

It made Motoya feel a little silly for having so boldly declared that he wanted to win the Interhigh and Nationals, too. When they broke out into small groups for passing drills, Motoya was paired up with Sakusa, who only stared at him impassively. The ball went into the air, and the syncopation of balls rebounding off of forearms, heads, and the walls could be heard. Motoya sent the ball up into the air, and Sakusa hit it back.

“Kaisei went pretty far in the Spring Tournament,” Motoya said, once they got into the rhythm of passing.

“Hn.” Sakusa added, “We got eliminated like everyone else, though.”

Motoya swallowed the bitterness of defeat, thick in his throat. It had been months already since he’d graduated middle school, and he was at a new school, too. Time to change the subject.

“Are you thinking of playing wing spiker in high school, too?” he asked.

Sakusa’s eyes lit up then, and he held onto the ball instead of passing it back. Motoya blinked at his sudden display of excitement.

“Of course. Wing spiker is the only position worth playing! When push comes to shove, it’s the spiker who gets the ball over the net and scores.”

Motoya tilted his head, smiling wryly. “Pretty sure there are six players on a team.”

Sakusa seemed to realize the implication of his words. His brow furrowed again. “Obviously. But the libero is important, too.” He paused. “You could probably play wing spiker, if you wanted. It’s not like you’re too short to play any other position.”

Motoya felt his smile fade. Of course. The first time that he’d ever seen Sakusa had been when he’d accosted a group of strangers for no reason other than they had pissed him off. Motoya had tried to think of some noble intent behind Sakusa’s reaction at the Spring Tournament, but the situation was clear now: Sakusa was just plain rude. What a way to get to know his future teammate. Motoya was supposed to spend three years with him?

“You’re pretty rude, aren’t you, Sakusa?”

It was Sakusa’s turn to blink. “Uh.”

“When someone asks you whether you’re going to play the same position, you’re supposed to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and ask the same—not insult the other person.”

The two of them stood there, stock still, while the clamoring of soles skidding on the gymnasium floor and shouts went on around them. Motoya didn’t like to raise his voice or get mad, but he could admit it when he was pissy. And right now, he was really pissy. The number of times had he been asked why he wanted to play libero when he could easily play any other position could fill up a well. What did they know?

“Uh, wait Komori—”

The whistle went off, and Sakusa fell quiet. It was time for them to change drills. Motoya looked expectantly at Sakusa, whose expression had gone dark. When nothing came out of his mouth, Motoya sighed and went back to the center of the gym to await their next instructions. He pretended not to notice that Sakusa was standing behind him, keeping his eyes trained on the captain in front of them.

Today was the first day of volleyball practice at Itachiyama Academy, and Komori Motoya was going to be on the same team as Sakusa Kiyoomi. It was going to be a long three years.

* * *

By the end of the week, Motoya was getting used to the Itachyama campus. Morning practice started early, and after a full day of classes, afternoon practice went on for another two hours. By the end of the day, he was hungry enough to clean up his entire cafeteria dinner and go back for seconds. In the midst of all of this, he definitely didn’t think about Sakusa or that first day of practice. Instead, he thought about the things that he enjoyed: the nice burn from a good stretch, the Western breakfast that the cafeterias served once a week, watching the current third year ace score on wild cut shots that not even the main libero could save.

Motoya couldn’t change the fact that he was on the same team as Sakusa, but that didn’t mean he had to spend all his time with him. Itachiyama was a big school, and Sakusa was in the college prep class anyway. Motoya probably wouldn’t see him that often.

Motoya’s hopes were crushed in one fell swoop the next day with an announcement that the first years would be paired off in groups of three for a round robin. It was meant ‘to assess their skills’ now that they’d gotten settled into the team. Just like that, they were given their assignments, and so Motoya stood across from his teammate Sakusa, whose hands were gathered in front of him.

“Hi,” Sakusa grunted, finally.

Motoya tried not to be petty. He might have failed. “You know when you play three-on-three, you’ll have to play the libero’s role sometimes, too.”

Sakusa’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Listen: if you have a problem, come out with it.”

Their third teammate interjected: “Uh, do you two know each other?”

“No,” they answered at the same time, and stalked off to where the managers were handing out the practice jerseys.

With the coach’s whistle, the match began with Sakusa’s serve. Their opponents cleanly bumped it and brought it into position for a last-minute feint across the net. Motoya watched him click his tongue in annoyance; he nearly expected Sakusa to say something rude to him, but he remained silent. When he noticed Motoya watching, Sakusa huffed and turned away to resume the game.

The most infuriating part of the entire exercise was that Sakusa wasn’t bad at filling in for positions other than wing spiker. In fact, he was quite good. When the ball came into a bad spot in the court, he knew how to bump it back into the air and send it over to Motoya to get the ball in position for the last hit. It was easy to work with him, even if it wasn’t similarly easy to talk to him in between the drills or in the hallways at school.

Motoya found himself getting caught up in the games, even though he wanted to stay resentful of Sakusa until he apologized. When it came time to play volleyball, all thoughts of the conflicts off the court faded away. He was too busy looking at the ball and trying to keep up with his teammates as both sides of the net raced to the first twenty-five points. To his surprise, Sakusa wasn’t too cool to do the same; he knew how to wordlessly pump his fist every time he managed to get a service ace, pride shining bright in his expression.

In the end, though, their team up was too new, and the formation too brittle to secure the biggest number of wins. That went to another group of first years, who exchanged high fives with one another as the rest of them watched. The memory of the final bus ride home came back to Motoya. The quiet disappointment and the empty days that followed, knowing that the other teams—the strongest teams—would return for the tournament finals. Back then, he’d been frustrated that he couldn’t share in that sadness. What he realized now was that he hadn’t been sad; he’d been angry. Angry to go home, angry to spend time away from the court and the ball. If only he’d made that receive. If only, if only. He hated the thought of it.

“All right, we’ll break early today. Thank you for your hard work!” their coach announced.

“Thank you!” they all returned, in unison.

Motoya didn’t offer to help with the clean up like he usually did. Instead, he went to the open gymnasium double doors and sat down on the stone steps.

Before him, the school courtyard stretched out wide to a view of the whole campus, and the very last of the summer cicadas hummed their tune into the late afternoon. Motoya drew his knees up to his chest and sighed. It was only when something dropped onto his head that he saw that he had company. He touched the cloth. A towel. He looked up. Sakusa was settling down on the step above his.

“Wipe up your sweat. You’ll catch a cold otherwise.”

Sakusa’s eyes were trained forward, the line of his mouth straight and firm. Didn’t he care about winning? Maybe his introduction on the first day of practice had been in earnest, and all he wanted was to play in the nationals—make good memories for the future. Even though he already knew how to play like that. Motoya tore the towel off of his head and thrust it back at Sakusa.

“How can you be so calm? Don’t you want to win?” he asked.

At that, Sakusa turned his head. There was agitation and dissatisfaction swirling hot in the dark of his irises, his entire face overcast with it. “Do I look like I’m happy? There’s no way anyone would be okay with losing after doing their best.”

“Oh.”

“I know I can be…unpleasant. It doesn’t mean I wanted us to lose.”

Motoya stared. “Did you just try to apologize to me?”

Sakusa frowned. “So what? I pissed you off, didn’t I?” He pushed the towel into Motoya’s face again. “And seriously? Fucking wipe up your sweat. You aren’t going to win anything if you get sick.”

Motoya was a little stunned. It only took him a moment to shake it off and smile. “So even a guy like you knows how to comfort others, huh?”

Sakusa grunted, but didn’t otherwise protest. Motoya laughed and took the towel to wipe the sweat from his brow. He held the towel to his chest and leaned against the doorjamb. Even though his words were rough and he had callous manners, Sakusa didn’t seem like a bad person—just exacting. Motoya thought that he could live with that. Maybe they could even be good teammates after all.

“I’ll wash this before I give it back,” Motoya said, grinning. His own conciliatory gesture.

Sakusa’s brow relaxed, and he flushed a little. “Whatever. Fine.”

Now that the adrenaline from repeated matches in a row had died down, Motoya’s limbs were starting to grow heavy and his body tired. Crickets were joining in on the cicada song, and neither he nor Sakusa interrupted it. The disappointment of the day’s practice was tempered by Sakusa’s quiet company. They sat there until their names were called: “Hey, you two! Do you ever plan on helping out with clean up?”

“Coming!” they called out together. Then Motoya turned to Sakusa. “Loser sweeps.”

“No. I’m _not_ racing you. Are we five now?”

“Loser sweeps!” Motoya declared, and broke out into a run. He laughed when the sound of Sakusa’s soles clapping against the floor followed behind him. There was no telling what tomorrow would be like, but as Motoya raced across the gym, he thought it would be okay to be hopeful for what the next three years would bring.

**Author's Note:**

> There!!! Are!! No!!! Character!!! Profiles!!! FOR!!! THEM!!! I am starting a small Change Dot Org petition to get Furudate sensei to release them. I need to know their birthdays. Why is Itachiyama a mystery? I persevered in spite of sadistically putting myself in a position where I would have to write about Itachiyama a great deal. I could have not done that, but did I? Absolutely not.
> 
> Thank you for reading this to the end! I hope that Furudate continues to never release the profiles so that this story can never become outdated. Happy Haikyuu Rare Pair Week!
> 
> Title is from "Still Young" by Neon Trees.
> 
> EDIT (06/20/2020): I realize how poorly this author's note has aged. Thank you to Furudate for making sure of this fact. I won't delete this or the other stories of this ship, so we can revisit the days when I had hopes and dreams. Thank you.


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